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Best Android apps for college students

Nowadays, getting into college is challenging. Unless you have a scholarship, there are chances that you will have a hard time financing and keeping up with your college life and studies. Gone are the days when your backpack carried heavy books and timetables so that you wouldn’t miss anything. Today, technology has helped immensely in simplifying college life. From simple timetable management apps to complete eBook readers and student finance calculators, these Android apps are here to help and make it easy for you to manage your college routine. There are many free and paid apps that can help you sail through college, and below is our humble effort to bring together the best apps for college students:

In case you missed your chance of going to either Harvard, Berkeley, or Stanford, then don’t beat yourself up over it. Thanks to this app, these great universities can come to you. Virt U: The Virtual University is a great app that lets you watch lectures from leading universities right from the comfort of your Android device. In order to complement your current college studies, Virt U offers you the flexibility to skim through scores of graduate and undergraduate lectures available on various subjects. The lectures, available via this app, are also available for offline viewing.

The app also boasts of being a “community of on-line learners” and provides limited social media interaction that allows the user to connect via Facebook and share their favorite lectures. Users of this app can also interact via the community discussion board. Of course the app has some design flaws, but this certain app is a must-have for all college students.

Virt U: The Virtual University comes free of charge in the Google Play Store.

Today, you don’t really need to pack all those bulky books into your backpack for college. With the advent of Android and some great apps, you can reduce your backpack load immensely while keeping it smart.

The Kindle for Android app is something you’ll need all through your college years to keep your backpack load to a minimum. Kindle for Android is an app that allows you to read e-Books on the go and today, most paper books are being quickly replaced with their electronic versions. With the help of this app, you can access the eBooks already present on your Android device, buy new books online, check-out eBooks, journals, and periodicals via your local library, and sync your eBooks via multiple platforms, etc.

This app also allows you to easily tailor your reading experience according to your preferences. You can change font size, make bookmarks, create notes and control screen brightness while you read.

Sometimes you come across a great paragraph or a note that is part of a publication and you just don’t have time to get it photocopied or printed. To let you save documents for future use on the go, CamScanner -Phone PDF creator is a great app.

This app allows you to take photos of a document and then convert it into PDF for printing or sharing. CamScanner comes with a wide variety of integrated features that even let you crop, enhance, and save document pictures in a variety of other formats.

There is also an auto crop and enhance tool that lets you modify the captured document for best viewing or printing angles. The app also provides you limited sharing facility. You can email, tweet, or share your scanned documents across multiple platforms. This is of course subject to availability of social media apps on your phone.

CamScanner -Phone PDF Creator is available for free in the Google Play Store. You can also purchase a pro version that comes with zero advertisements, the ability to scan documents without watermarks and with no limitations on number of documents scanned.

Have you ever thought about selling your used semester books for a price? If you haven’t, then it’s time for you to think about it. Your older books, which you no longer need, can bring in some fast cash to your pockets via the Cash4Books Scan & Sell Books app. Cash4Books is an online service that has been in operation since 2004.

The main business of this portal is to help college graduates and undergrads get rid of their used books for good money. With Cash4Books, you can easily scan book bar code and get instant price quotations from available buyers.

If you like a price quote for your book, you can then ship your book to Cash4Books and get paid fast. You can either get paid via PayPal or opt for mail-in check.

Cash4Books Scan & Sell Books app is available for free at the Google Play Store.

It is now time to stop carrying that class timetable you scribbled on paper and use your Android device to handle things smartly. Studious for Android is a homework and timetable manager for students of all ages. Although the name doesn’t explain much, the app is virtually your all-in-one studies manager while you’re still studying. With Studious on your Android phone or tablet, you can schedule your device to go on auto silent during lectures. Studious also reminds you of your homework and tests. With this app, you can also save notes, text, and photos for future reference on the go. The app has excellent developer support and all new updates carry bug fixes along with performance improvements.

In college, it is difficult for students to jot down every valuable word coming out of the teacher’s mouth. Sometimes, while taking down notes, you miss essential information that remains a mystery unless you can get hold of the teacher and ask him or her to explain it. Gone are the days when college students used to carry bulky voice recorders to record lectures. If you have an Android phone, then you are all set to record each and every word said during the lecture for reference.

Easy Voice Recorder is one such Android app that lets you capture audio and voice in great quality. The user interface of this app is pretty simple and all you need to do is press the record button to get things rolling. Easy Voice Recorder for Android allows you to record MP4 files using AAC and 3GP files using AMR.

With this app, you can also record files to WAV format. The app comes with a widget, so you can always have it handy on your phone’s homescreen to start recording.

Easy Voice Recorder is available for free on the Google Play Store. You can also get a featured-packed pro version that costs US$3.08.

Most college students find it difficult to get up to attend early-morning lectures. Most of the time, you end up feeling guilty about a really important class that you missed because of your inability to get up on time. Android can help you getting up on time, as well. Alarm Clock Xtreme is an Android app that wakes you up on time. This app comes packed with features that prevent extra snoozing.

With this app, you can set your morning alarm to slowly rise in volume and wake you up gently and more naturally. You can either set some math problems to prevent yourself from turning off the alarm or set an extra-large snooze button. Alarm Clock Xtreme comes loaded with features like random song alarm, shake-to-dismiss snoozing, a countdown timer, and more.

Alarm Clock Xtreme is available for free on the Google Play Store. There is also a paid version of this app that costs US$1.99 and comes ad-free.

Once you are in the college, it is really difficult to avoid courses that involve the use of a calculator. From simple arts majors to computer science and engineering students, there are always some courses that require college students to posses a calculator. Although you can go and buy a new calculator, we’d suggest something different.

Your Android phone is a great device and there are some great calculator apps that eradicate the need for buying a standalone calculating machine. handyCalc Calculator is an Android app that delivers more than it promises. This app has been declared as the best by various weblogs and publications. The app comes with a robust auto suggestion tool and makes it easier for the users to learn while making calculations.

You also have a choice to display answers in fraction or decimal mode. With this calculator, you don’t even need a standalone currency or unit conversion app. The handyCalc Calculator has built in functions to handle currency, unit, and metric conversions. The app also offers graph plotting and solving.

You can download handyCalc Calculator for Android free of charge from the Google Play Store.

When you are looking to stay ahead of the class, nothing works better than quizzing yourself. gFlash+ Flashcards & Tests is a handy Android app that lets you do just that. It provides instant access to flashcard sets that can be used to test yourself. The flashcards can be added from the ones you might have created at Google Docs and the gWhiz catalog.

gFlash+ Flashcards & Tests tracks your test score so that you can assess your progress. While the iOS version of this app provides Google account access, the Android version requires you to upload files from Google Docs to your public directory instead.

gFlash+ Flashcards & Tests is a good app for not just for students but also for teachers who can use it to share their flash cards with students. This way, students can collaborate with their teachers for creating a self-assessment packs that are appropriate and custom-made for their needs.

gFlash+ Flashcards & Tests is available for free in the Google Play Store.

College life isn’t all about books. In college, you get to meet new people, socialize and, maybe, take one or two of them to movies. If you are in college and are looking to keep yourself updated with the latest flicks, show times, and movie reviews, then Movies by Flixster is an app you shouldn’t miss.

The app allows you to see what’s hot at the box office and to track the latest show times at theaters near your college area. The app comes with some great features such as latest critic reviews of flicks by Rotten Tomatoes. Via this app, you can also watch movie trailers in high definition. Movies by Flixster also allows you to create and manage a “want to see list” followed by adding your own comments and reviews to different movies.

The Movies by Flixster app is available, free of charge, on the Google Play Store.

That wraps up our best apps list for college students. We know that we haven’t covered everything, so if you have a great app that’s helping you through college but one that we missed, please do share it with us in the comments section.